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And so ends the shortest preseason you can go through, with the Milwaukee Bucks dropping 127-113 to the New Orleans Pelicans to bow out their winless preseason. If you missed the first quarter of tonight’s game, then I’m jealous, because the Bucks without Giannis Antetokounmpo laid an egg while the Pelicans ran for a 35-20 lead. For anyone tuned in to start the second, you were greeted with a much better game, as the Bucks took the lead from New Orleans until they just hung out by two at halftime, 57-59. They shot just 26.9% (7-26) from behind the arc. The Bucks bench team led the Pelicans to reestablish a bigger lead to finish the third, with Milwaukee entering the final period with a 98-90 drop. The fourth quarter saw Bud emptying his bench and the clean-up team couldn’t secure a conquering victory.
Khris Middleton more than picked up the scoring in Giannis’ absence, pulling his usual range of cross-moves before breaking through the jumpers straight into the people’s grid. He finished with 29 points in just 26 minutes on 9-16 shots. Jrue Holiday and Donte DiVincenzo added 15 and 14 respectively.
The Bucks had their first chance to face former teammate Eric Bledsoe. Bled had 14 points on a 5-11 shot, so basically a Bledsoe night. Zion Williamson for some reason played until the final buzzer, ending with 31 points and nine tables.
Milwaukee kicks off the regular season against the Boston Celtics on Wednesday, Dec. 23 at 6:30 p.m. on TNT.
Bonus Bucks Bits
The Bucks gave Giannis a well-deserved rest for the final preseason game after signing his super max this week, as Bobby Portis took the start in his place. They listed him as having back pain. DJ Augustin was also released with a calf sprain.
DJ Wilson will likely be a pumpkin in the real season, but it was heartening to see him looking decent finishing up as a man rolling indoors. In the first one tonight, he had a solid contact finish. He had a similar chemistry with Middleton in the second half too for a break.
Even though his deep ball didn’t fall at all, it was encouraging to see Donte DiVincenzo seize all the offensive opportunities available to him in the second half on a bench-only formation (aside from Brook Lopez). It would have been nice to see him try to get started as a playmaker a bit more, but one final preseason game is as good an opportunity as any to try and adjust your jumper in shape. regular season. Hope he broke his system.
Sam Merrill got the second quarter of minutes in that game, alongside a Holiday-Middleton-Wilson-Portis formation. I wondered if that could portend something to come … then I saw Thanasis get the second quarter minute as well. Nonetheless, whether Jordan Nwora or Merrill could get the duty on the spot as a full-time regular-season shooter could be something to watch out for. Merrill calmly knocked down two trebles in the period.
Bud won his coach’s challenge tonight, reversing an offensive foul on Khris Middleton. The Bucks quickly turned him over.
We all know Donte is one of the best Bucks to sneak around the screens. Well he met his match tonight against Steven Adams; in the third quarter, Donte slammed into the Kiwi and was stopped in his tracks while Lonzo Ball was free to hit a bank shot with the elbow.
When Adams and Zion split, Bud opted to have his center Brook Lopez face off against the former Blue Devil rather than let Williamson see the havoc he could wreak on Portis Jr., which isn’t all that surprising considering of Portis’ defensive reputation, but he still tells you everything you need to know as Bud was feeling better with his cross against Sion’s foot fleet. FWIW – Zion won this match tonight, even though Brook had this notable blockage.
Jrue Holiday had more than one offensive role in this one, and one place he was lucky enough to shine: on the block. Several times tonight he has posted his defender and in the third he found his way to the charity strip and missed a little fadeaway on the other. We’ll see if this wrinkle works its way into the attack when Giannis is playing.
We had our first (and probably last) sighting from Nik Stauskas for this preseason in the fourth quarter. He wasted no time missing his first shot! We also got our first in-depth look at Mamadi Diakite, the rookie from Virginia, who scored his first NBA bucket on a comeback.
The Bucks shot just 10-40 tonight from deep. In their three preseason games, they shot only 31-111 (27.9%) overall, while their opponents shot 51-121 (42.1%).
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